Information AboutDublin Airport |
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Dublin Airport , or '''Aerfort Bhaile Atha Cliath''' in Irish , is operated by Dublin Airport Authority and is the busiest Airport in Ireland . Over 18.4 million passengers travelled through the airport in 2005 (a 1.3 million/8% increase over 2004), and over 20 million passengers are expected in 2006. The airport is located approximately 10 kilometres north of Dublin City in an area properly known as Collinstown. The airport is the headquarters of Ireland's flag carrier Aer Lingus , and Europe's largest no-frills airline Ryanair (although Dublin is not Ryanair's largest hub.) Ireland's third airline, Cityjet , are based in the nearby town of Swords, and although Ireland's domestic and regional airline, Aer Arann , provide several domestic flights from Dublin, they are actually based at Galway Airport in the west of Ireland. Dublin Airport has an extensive short and medium-haul route network: several domestic Irish routes, around thirty routes to its nearest neighbour, the United Kingdom , and a vast network of routes to Continental Europe. The Dublin-London international air corridor is the second busiest in the world (after Hong Kong-Taipei) with flights from Dublin to all five London airports - Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, and London City. Aer Lingus and several US and Canadian carriers provide services to many destinations in the United States and Canada . Dublin and Shannon (on the west coast of Ireland) are the only two European airports with U.S. Border Preclearance facilities which saves passengers a lot of time upon arrival in the United States. The latest development at the airport has been the addition of two new direct routes to Dubai and Bahrain in the Middle East. Dublin Airport is the 5th fastest growing European airport, the 66th busiest airport in the world, and the 19th busiest for international flights. HISTORY In 1936 the Irish Government established a new civil airline, Aer Lingus , which began operating from the military aerodrome at Baldonnel to the south of Dublin. However, the decision was made that a civil airport should replace Baldonnel as the city's airport. Collinstown, to the north of Dublin, was selected as the location for the new civil aerodrome. Construction of the new airport began in 1937 . By the end of 1939 a grass runway, internal roads, car parks and electrical power and lighting were set up. The inaugural flight from Dublin took place on January 19 , 1940 to Liverpool . In 1940 work began on a new airport terminal building. The terminal building, opened in 1941 , was modeled on the bridge of a luxury liner and was awarded the ''Triennial Gold Medal of the Royal Hibernian Institute of Architects'' and is today a listed building. Services were severely curtailed at Dublin Airport due to World War II , however, afterwards three new concrete runways were built and completed by 1947 . Throughout the 1950s Dublin Airport expanded with virtually uninterrupted traffic growth. Runway extensions and terminal enhancements were carried out to deal with the influx of traffic and passengers. New airlines began serving the airport also. These included British European Airways , Sabena and BKS . In 1958 a new transatlantic service was started by Aer Lingus via Shannon Airport . During the 1960s the number of scheduled carriers continued to grow and aircraft continued to evolve with technological, advancement. By the close of the sixties, a sizeable number of Boeing 737 , BAC1-11 , Boeing 707 , Tridents and Boeing 720 's were using Dublin Airport on a regular basis. By 1969 1,737,151 passengers travelled through Dublin Airport. The advent of wide-bodied aircraft posed opportunities and challenges for aviation. In 1971 Aer Lingus took delivery of two new Boeing 747 aircraft (a third Boeing 747 was delivered later that decade). To cope with this a new passenger terminal capable of handling five million passengers per year was opened in 1972 . The growth which was anticipated at the airport (and provided for through heavy investment by the airport and Aer Lingus) during the 1970s did not materialise. This was due to the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland , and two energy crises which sparked off a major worldwide economic recession. In 1983 Aer Lingus opened its 'Aer Lingus Commuter' division which took delivery of Shorts, Saab, and Fokker turboprop aircraft to open regular daily domestic services to/from Ireland's smaller regional airports for the first time, as well as to serve existing routes to regional airports in the United Kingdom. At various stages of its operations, flights were operated to several Irish regional airports to feed passengers into Aer Lingus's international network. These domestic destinations included Cork Airport , Shannon Airport , Kerry Airport , Galway Airport , Knock Airport , Waterford Airport , Sligo Airport , and City Of Derry Airport in Northern Ireland (although there is a huge volume of journeys made between Dublin and Belfast, several attempts at a Dublin-Belfast air route have failed because both the motorway linking the two cities, and the high speed 'Enterprise' rail service offer travellers a journey time of around two hours). Aer Lingus Commuter has since been re-absorbed into the main company, and the domestic routes (as well as City of Derry) have been taken over either by Aer Arann or British Airways, whilst Aer Lingus has continued with the Dublin-UK flights. During the 1980s, major competition, especially on the Dublin-London routes, resulted in passenger numbers swelling to 5.1 million in 1989 . In the same year a new 8,650-foot runway and a state-of-the-art air traffic control centre were opened. Dublin Airport continued to expand rapidly in the 1990s. Pier A, which had been the first extension to the old terminal building, was significantly extended. A new Pier C, complete with air bridges, was built and as soon as this was completed, work commenced to extend it to double its capacity. The ground floor of the original terminal building, which is today a listed building, was returned to passenger service after many years to provide additional departure gates. In 1993 a major milestone for the airport was the signing of a new United States - Republic Of Ireland bilateral agreement which allowed airlines to operate some direct transatlantic services for the first time to/from Dublin Airport instead of touching down en route at Shannon Airport on the west coast of Ireland (Shannon had once been a major transatlantic refuelling stop for pre-jet aircraft, and this agreement was designed to protect the interests of the Shannon region when modern jets no longer required a refuelling stop and Shannon saw a fall off in traffic). Airlines still had to provide an equal number of flights either to or through Shannon as to Dublin. A gradual further watering down of Shannon's so-called 'stopover' status will come into effect in November 2006 when more direct flights to Dublin will be allowed, until it disappears completely in 2008. At that time, airlines will be allowed to fly direct to the US from Dublin without having to match these with any to/from Shannon. It is anticipated that this will result in more US airlines and a huge increase in services between Dublin and the US. Indeed Aer Lingus, which is in very aggressive mood regarding developing its long-haul network, has identified 16 destinations that it would like to serve direct from Dublin. This of course casts doubt on the future of transatlantic flights to Shannon, however there is definitely a large demand, and up until now, the 'stopover' has not deterred Aer Lingus and several US airlines from offering either dedicated Shannon-US flights to allow them to fly to Dublin direct, or stopping at Shannon on one leg of their Dublin-US flights. Either way, the business community in Ireland feels that the removal of the 'stopover' is long overdue and has long prevented Dublin, with its perfect location at that west of Europe, from becoming a major hub between that continent and North America. One counter argument to that has been that Dublin did not generate sufficient traffic of its own to support this 'hub' theory. However that is certainly no longer the case. With the extraordinary success of the Republic of Ireland's ' Celtic Tiger ' economy, Dublin Airport has seen phenomenal growth in the 1990s and 2000s. This demand has been driven by a huge increase in business travel to and from the country, together with an increase in inward tourism, and a surge in demand for foreign holidays and city breaks from the Irish, who are now one of the wealthiest populations in the world. In January 2006, the number of trips abroad taken by the Irish outnumbered the number of inbound trips for the first time since records began; media reports were common towards the end of 2005 of the Irish descending on New York in their droves for Christmas shopping weekends (although London is still the top destination from Dublin). A further source of demand has been for flights to holiday homes and investment properties which have been snapped up by the property-hungry Irish across southern European holiday hotspots, the emerging economies of Eastern Europe, and beyond. And finally, the demand from Ireland's migrant workers, principally those from Eastern Europe, has resulted in a large number of new routes opening to destinations in the EU accession states. To give just one example of the 'Eastern Europe' effect, both LOT Polish Airlines and Aer Lingus separately opened a Warsaw-Dublin route in 2004 operating a patchy schedule to test demand, but both airlines have since gone daily with this route, with LOT even going double daily several days a week. As of early 2006 there are direct flights to seven cities in Poland alone, with a choice of two or even three airlines on some routes. The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are also connected with direct flights to Dublin, as are The Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Like all airports across the world, Dublin Airport felt the effect of the September 11th atrocities, but was one of the few European airports not to record a decline in passenger numbers that year (the last year a decline in traffic was recorded was during the Gulf War). Security, which has always been a high priority, has been heightened. There was a serious decline in transatlantic travel (leading Aer Lingus and Delta Air Lines to pull their services to Baltimore and New York (JFK) respectively) but this has since recovered and 2006 promises to be a record year for transatlantic traffic. Aer Lingus will be serving its existing destinations of New York (JFK) (three flights daily), Boston Logan , Chicago O'Hare , and Los Angeles International , but capacity constraints have forced them to pull the popular charter service to Orlando , Florida - this may be re-opened in the future however as more US routes are expected from Aer Lingus who are awaiting delivery of additional Airbus A330 long-haul aircraft in 2007 for this purpose. The Dublin- Baltimore route, which was axed following 9/11 (and had been even busier than British Airways ' London Heathrow - Baltimore route), may also re-open when these aircraft are delivered. Aer Lingus are facing stiff competition however from the American carriers. Continental Airlines ' existing year-round Newark service is so busy that it is going double daily, and Delta Air Lines are resuming their daily year-round service to New York (JFK) (pulled following 9/11) to supplement their existing daily to Atlanta-Hartsfield (which will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year). American Airlines will be flying daily to Chicago O'Hare , US Airways are resuming their daily Philadelphia service and Air Canada will again be flying to Toronto . Meanwhile, it is rumoured that United Airlines are seriously looking at introducing a service to Dublin - they have an existing codeshare arrangement on the US Airways Philadelphia - Shannon service. In October 2004, Aer Rianta (which means 'Air Ways' or 'Air Tracks' in the Irish Language) was renamed the Dublin Airport Authority plc, following the State Airports Act 2004. All assets and liabilities previously owned by Aer Rianta transferred to the Dublin Airport Authority plc. The State Airports Act 2004 also established new airport authorities at Shannon and Cork Airports. The Shannon Airport Authority plc and the Cork Airport Authority plc have separate boards of directors and have been authorised under the Act to prepare business plans, which may in time lead to their full separation from the Dublin Airport Authority plc. As the largest gateway to Ireland, over 18.4 million passengers travelled through the airport in 2005, a 1.3 million (or 8%) increase over 2004, and Dublin Airport is expected to welcome in excess of 20 million passengers for the first time in 2006 (to put this into context, the population of Greater Dublin is approx. 1.6 million, Republic of Ireland just over 4 million, and Ireland is just below 6 million.). The main contributors to the growth in traffic in 2005 were the airport's routes to Continental Europe and North America. Domestic and UK traffic showed a small decline, due to a reduction in connecting traffic between Ireland's regional airports and the UK. This is as a result of a growing direct network of routes between those airports and the UK/Europe, dispensing with the need to transit at Dublin. It is also estimated that Dublin Airport welcomes approximately one million passengers per annum from across the border in Northern Ireland, whose sluggish economy has not delivered anywhere near the same level of choice of destinations or airlines from its airports. CAPACITY Due to the phenomenal growth experienced at Dublin Airport in recent years, 'catch-up' has been a feature of how the authorities have been dealing with the growth in demand. One part or another of the airport has been a building site for the past two decades. Despite massive building works and extensions, it is widely accepted that the existing terminal building and infrastructure are insufficient to deal with the volume of passengers (in excess of 20 million passengers are expected through the airport in 2006). Both the Irish Government and the Dublin Airport Authority have come under pressure from airlines and passengers alike to once-and-for-all provide a realistic increase in capacity for the future. As a result, a new pier (Pier D) is to be added to the original terminal which will add significant additional airside capacity. This will be operational by 2007. Terminal 2 is to be built and operational by 2009, as will a new pier (Pier E) to Terminal 1. A third terminal is provided for in the blueprint for the future development of the airport. In the interim, space in the basement of the terminal building will be used to create Check-in Area 14 from Summer 2006. Concerns remain that the airport's road network will become further congested until the Metro to the airport is up and running (see below) and the new road network is completed in 2011. Also at the planning stages is a new runway to be built parallel to the existing runway 10/28 (opened in 1989). Detailed proposals and planning permission were submitted to Fingal County Council (under whose jurisdiction Dublin Airport lies) and approved in April 2006. The decision was welcomed by Dublin Airport Authority who will take time to assess the specifics of the decision in greater detail. According to the Dublin Airport Authority the new parallel runway needs to be operational within six to seven years to ensure that the airfield at Dublin Airport continues to operate effectively and airline operations are not subjected to growing delays on arrival and departure. In the meantime, the Authority has invested heavily in extending aprons and creating rapid exit taxiways to derive maximum efficiency from the existing main runway. At peak hours smaller aircraft make use of one of the two older runways. GROUND TRANSPORTATION Dublin Airport is located just off the M1 Motorway (Dublin-Belfast road) approximately 10km North from the City Centre and 2km south of the town of Swords . There is currently no Rail Link from Dublin Airport to the City Centre, and plans for an extension to the DART ( light rail, DART electrified overground railway, 'Arrow' outer suburban rail services, as well as Irish Rail's inter-city rail services to Rosslare, Waterford, Cork, Tralee, Limerick, Galway, Westport, Ballina, and Sligo, and the high-speed cross-border 'Enterprise' service to Belfast. Until the Metro is completed, several companies offer frequent Bus connections to Dublin City Centre, Belfast, Galway, Cork and nearby towns. AIRLINES AND DESTINATIONS With in excess of 4.5 million passengers per annum, the Dublin-London air corridor is the busiest in Europe and is the second busiest in the world (after Hong Kong-Taipei).
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